


Worry No More (When Love Leans Against The Door)

by blanchtt



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 04:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7998892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next day she’s let out in time for mass, and when it’s time for chores she slips away - another bad idea, but she’s hungry - and escapes outside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worry No More (When Love Leans Against The Door)

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> _  
> There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread._  
> 

 

 

 

 

Aneta gets to help Sister Grata in the kitchens. This is both good and bad. 

 

Hunger is a constant companion. That and Sister Paula's beatings, as certain and unstoppable as the sun rising each morning. Something she no longer focuses on but accepts as simply there. 

 

Aneta comes back to the dormitory after dinner, after they’ve all done their chores and prayers and gotten into bed and Aneta, being older, has helped Sister Grata clean up. Helena hears the door creak open, the hinges far from silent, and sits up, kicking sheets away and finally getting up. Aneta goes to her bed, and she follows silent as a mouse. 

 

“Aneta,” she whispers, not wanting to wake anyone else because that means more mouths to feed, and Aneta jumps, tugs her nightgown down to a decent length and shakes her head when she sees her. 

 

“You should be in bed, _mishka,”_ Aneta chides, settling into bed, but she pats the thin blanket and Helena sits, legs crossed, as Aneta takes out her handkerchief anyway. She opens it, and there are a few chocolate chips, some scraps of babka cake. She swallows, and looks up at Aneta, Aneta nodding before Helena takes a chip, pops it onto her tongue and savors the taste of the chocolate melting in her mouth. 

 

“Lucky nuns,” Aneta says wryly, and if any of the Sisters were to hear her speaking that way she’d be beaten for sure. Helena reaches out again, tearing off a piece of cake, and Aneta finishes up the scrap, taking the rest. 

 

“Thank you,” Helena says sincerely, licking chocolate from her lips, because if there is one thing the Sisters have taught her that _has_ been of some use it has been manners, and because even at eight she knows Aneta has no obligation to help her, and yet she does. 

 

Aneta reaches out, and Helena lets her ruffle her hair, a small price to pay for _sit-with-me-Helena_ and chocolate, even if Sister Sophia yanks on her hair hard when she brushes it each morning. “Go to sleep, alright? And not a word of this to anyone.”

 

Helena nods, slides off Aneta’s bed and heads back to her own. 

 

Over the next few days, she almost wishes she had never tasted it. It is easy to forget the bland taste of bread and water, water and bread, the same stale routine day after day after day. But to have tasted chocolate and sugar and flakey dough - not so easy.

 

It takes two days and a grumbling stomach before Helena approaches Sister Agatha after dinner. 

 

“I want babka,” she says, situating herself next to Sister Agatha - the older woman nearly runs into her as she picks up a plate and makes to head back into the kitchen. 

 

“What?”

 

Helena watches Sister Agatha’s eyes go steely. Is it a test? 

 

“I want babka, _please_.”

 

What she gets is a night in the broomcloset for the gall of it and for spreading ugly lies about the Sisters keeping babka, which Helena considers herself lucky to receive. Eulia’s had her lips sewn shut, for talking back. The next day she’s let out in time for mass, and when it’s time for chores she slips away - another bad idea, but she’s _hungry_ \- and escapes outside. 

 

Helena sits in the lee of the stone wall that runs along the eastern edge of the garden, back to the cold, rough rocks and prickling mortar. She reaches down, fists her hand in the overgrown grass, and yanks a handful of stalks out of the ground. She picks off strands, tasting only a few at a time, and instantly she spits the grass out, bitterness spreading on her tongue.

 

Try as she might, she can find no way around the fact. There are few things worth eating around the convent that can be consumed without the Sisters noticing. 

 

 

-

 

 

She sticks out miserably in France. Something about her does not fit in. 

 

The women are pretty. That is not to say that any other women are less pretty, but that here they seem to smile and say hello to their neighbors, to wear nice things and eschew modesty. It makes Danielle Fournier very easy to find, even without Tomas’ help - but she must blend in, and that is more difficult. She's never been vain and Tomas is a man. She knows nothing that can be done about her hair or clothing other than to pull it back in a frizzy bun, a simple enough task, and wear plain jeans and shirts. She has no nice coat and so goes without one, but this looks odd as well for early spring. 

 

The only thing she can do is get the job over with faster. 

 

Imperfect copies of her. Tomas has told her they must be wiped out, man’s abomination cleansed from the earth. It is of no particular concern to her whether she has sisters scattered across the globe or how they came to be, because did God not say for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged? But Tomas has a gun and food and she is a woman alone in a foreign land and is so hungry she gnaws on her lip to distract herself from her clenching stomach and the headache between her temples it brings, and so she does as Tomas says. 

 

Helena follows Danielle from a distance, pretends to linger in the same bookstore that she does, meanders down to the park several meters behind her, and when it begins to grow dark, she slips after Danielle as she leaves, the copy walking at a slow pace, unperturbed and unnoticing. 

 

Danielle stops by a cafe, settles at a table at the patio, and so Helena stays away, on the other side of the street, and picks an alleyway to watch from. She has no money to patronize a cafe with, and she’s learned that sitting at a table and buying nothing is a quick way to be thrown out and for attention be become drawn to her.

 

Danielle takes her dinner their at a leisurely pace, and it is torture to watch her. Helena reaches up, bites at the nail of her thumb as she keeps an eye on the copy while trying not to think about food, about how hunger, the familiar hollow ball in her middle, rears its head. _Food_ , her body demands, pleads, the word roaring and pitiful all at once because she is hungry but knows she will get nothing until the job is done. 

 

She looks away just for a moment - just a moment - to gather her composure, and the flicker of something tiny and shiny in the cobblestone gutter draws her attention. Helena darts out from the alley, thankful for the growing darkness, and picks up whatever it is before retreating back to her position. Danielle is still sitting at her table, Helena sees, eyes flicking up to assure herself, and with the copy not looking as if she’ll leave anytime soon, Helena examines her prize. It’s a twenty cent coin - she almost tosses it over her shoulder, none of them at the convent ever having a use for it, but looks back at Danielle. 

 

She copies the copy. Danielle leads her right back to her home - it’s clear she has no idea who or what she is, and so Helena is content to let her open her front door, to enter and surely lock it behind herself, safe for another night. Helena slips away, and spends the rest of the night scouring the streets, eyes peeled for dull glints of coin. 

 

By morning she’s got enough of a collection to jiggle loudly in her palm, and she picks a convenient store at random, walks in and pauses in the doorway. 

 

What to pick, what to pick! She glances around, grabs a candy bar, and takes it up to the woman who sits looking bored at the cash register. The woman rings her up, takes her money, looks at her strangely, and giver her more than half back. 

 

She’s offered her too much. Helena looks down at the coins the woman has dropped into the little dish in front of her, and reaches out at the display just to her right, picks another candy bar and sets it down on the counter.

 

“ _How much?_ ” she asks in Ukranian, and the woman understands without understanding her words. 

 

The woman takes some more coins out of the dish, leaving Helena’s new total, and Helena picks out one more candy bar, holds it up, and the woman takes more coins, and then that’s it. There are a few cents left, not enough to buy anything else.

 

“ _Thank you_ ,” Helena says, smiling as she grabs her purchases with both hands, and the woman says something back with a tired smile as Helena walks out of the store. 

 

She eats one bar as soon as she’s out of the store, ripping into the wrapper and snapping the bar in half, cramming it into her mouth and eating as she walks. Another reason she sticks out, but she’s too hungry to care as she swallows and stuffs the rest of the candy bar in her mouth, and then holds the wrapper up to her mouth, licks off the lingering bits of chocolate. 

 

The other two bars go in her coat pocket, for later, and Helena makes her way back to Danielle’s apartment. 

 

She’s in luck that she catches Danielle leaving. 

 

She slips around a corner, watches Danielle exit her apartment with another woman, pretty-pretty together, the fair, smiling copy holding the hand of a woman with dark hair and dark eyes, and Helena finds suddenly that her feet are stuck fast to the sidewalk, unable to follow after them. 

 

The other copies, the few she’s met so far, had families, boyfriends - no children, imperfect. But it is the first copy she sees keeping company with another woman. It looks… nice. No hitting. No screaming. Only hand-holding and walking to the market, a nice apartment.

 

And so Helena wonders. She retreats to the motel room Tomas has given her use of, and paces. 

 

The gun lies ready on the bed, but she makes her way to the bathroom counter, watches in the mirror as she runs her hands over small breast, prominent ribs, the concave dip of her stomach, boney hips. Is it something someone else would want to touch one day? The thought brings a flicker of happiness that is immediately stamped out by hesitation.

 

Her body has brought her nothing but grief throughout her life, a pale, thin target always hungry, always attracting heavy-handed tactics, harsh words and harsher actions, and the thought of being with a man is unappealing - they hit and push and make her do things she doesn’t want to. Maybe one day she can have a home somewhere, far from Tomas and copies and the trouble they bring, and share it with a woman who looks at her like she’s the moon and stars, that might touch her like she’s seen others do, a hug and a kiss, once on each cheek here. 

 

Helena eats the two candy bars before deciding. She has use of the motel room only because Tomas has the means to give it to her. Without him, she scrabbles for enough change for dinner, with no guarantee for clothing or home or food, _real_ food. 

 

It is sad, yes, for a moment. She picks Danielle off almost reluctantly, because Danielle taught her about money and purchases and cashiers helping her pay, as well as about  two women holding hands, soft and quiet. And so Helena lets the other woman go. She is not a copy. She does not deserve this. 

 

She receives praise from Tomas (useless) and dinner for her work (sustenance), but despite it being her first real meal in a week the food tastes like ash on her tongue, goes down just thick and almost chokes her.

 

She’s surprised to feel warmth pool at her eyes, and Tomas tells her that they are doing God’s work and to stop crying before she gives him something to make her cry about. 

 

 

-

 

 

She knows better than to say a word about anything uncomfortable or dangerous or cold or tiring. She’s learned not to from a young age - _you can’t eat excuses_ , Pupok’s told her, and it’s the same with complaints. 

 

She can come to peace with hunger but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take its toll on her body. Helena fights it, closes one eye and aims down the barrel of the grun, but her arm wobbles, weak with hunger and unable to hold the weapon steady, and the shot misses, shattering the window just above Katja Obinger’s head in a shower of glass. The German runs, and Helena very well can’t go after her in the middle of Berlin toting a gun and a hairsbreadth from passing out. 

 

She makes her way back to Tomas, cringing, and he is displeased but does not hit her as he takes back the gun. 

 

“Tomorrow,” he says with finality, and she nods eagerly. It is all he says, a very clear dismissal, and so she retreats to her corner of the room, takes off her coat and gets ready to use it as a pillow. 

 

But she’s forgotten to zip the pocket, and a small item falls out, a packet of candy, little gummy bears. She snatches it up off the floor quick as she can, but that motion catches Tomas’ eye, and he turns toward her. 

 

“Helena. What’s that?”

 

“Nothing,” she says, but she has always been a terrible liar and Tomas narrows his eyes, advances and holds out his hand. 

 

“Give it to me.”

 

She’s saved up for two days to buy it, Germany much less kind to her than France or Italy, and she hesitates. 

 

“ _Helena_ ,” Tomas repeats, voice raising in warning, and so she holds up her hand, clutches the packet and offers it to him, feeling her chest grow tight, heart pounding in the cage of her ribs as Tomas reaches out, and impulsively considers sinking her teeth into the flesh of his hand, _no - mine - mine - mine - stay away._ But that would only bring more pain and so with effort, gritting her teeth against the hunger mixed up with anger roiling in her stomach, she places the packet of candy in his palm, her euros and effort gone to waste. A lesson, Pupok would say wisely, if she were here. Next time she'll eat alone, instantly, before anyone can take it away. 

 

She has not done her job and so there is no food. Also unluckily for her, Katja runs all the way to Canada. It makes no sense, the copy having no relations in North America, and Tomas is furious at her until one night he tells her that someone has made contact with them, that someone wants to help them. 

 

They are on the next flight to Ontario.

 

 

-

 

 

Toronto is a sparkling city, clean and new, and Elizabeth Childs has a lovely home. 

 

She’s stood outside it at night before, more than once, to get a better understanding of what exactly she’s up against without risking too much. Tonight the windows are dark, the house still and silent, and they are either asleep or out. This is both good and bad. 

 

Thomas has said not to trail too closely for this one is a policewoman, but something higher than Thomas guides Helena toward Elizabeth’s home, slinking in shadows.  

 

Behind the home, in the alley that leads to garages and back doors, she quietly raises the lid off the trash can, looks around - no one watching - before reaching in. 

 

There are lots of empty beer bottles, clinking as she sifts through the garbage, and one pizza box. Tricky copy, this one. Why? It is a very different menu than the bottles of whiskey she has found before, the usual take-out boxes of fancy food she doesn’t recognize, the names of restaurants she can’t pronounce. Helena takes the box, lifts it out, opens the top - some strands of melted cheese, a crust. 

 

It's a goldmine. She takes the box, sits behind the trashcan through it really doesn't hide her from anyone walking nearby, and grabs the crust someone was ungrateful and lucky enough not to have finished. 

 

Elizabeth Childs and her boyfriend must be very happy people. 

 

 

-

 

 

She is recently stitched up and trailing Sarah Manning, sneaky-copy, not-Beth, and has had nothing to go on except that crust of pizza two days ago. Sleep has been hard to come by as well, and so the scent of restaurants is almost enough to drive her to distraction. Coupled with the rebar she’s just pulled out of her liver, she is very nearly close to walking right off the sidewalk, into a yard, any yard, and curling up under a bush, to rest in peace and quiet until everything, her stomach and side and shoulder from where Tomas hit her, stops aching. 

 

But Helena continues on, feeling the weakness of her thighs as she walks, plants one foot in front of the other with considerable focus. Was walking this difficult before? Were her boots always so heavy? She blinks, slow, and feels darkness prick at the corner of her eyes despite the daylight, feels heaviness overtake her all at once and almost welcomes it.

 

She wakes up in a very uncomfortable position. 

 

Her hands are tied behind herself and she lays flat against the ground, and so Helena pushes her shoulder against the concrete, sits up awkwardly and shakes hair from her face. Her shoulder protests, pain radiating in hot spikes, but it’s only from being slept on wrong. She’s had worse.

 

Helena looks around, and it’s clear she is underground - a basement in a home, likely, and sitting with her back to a load-bearing post. No way out. She looks around, immediately ill at ease at the idea, but goes still. 

 

There is a woman watching her, sitting and drinking tea, with a shotgun propped next to her who looks both kindly and strong at the same time. 

 

 _How_ , Helena wants to ask her, out of everything that comes to mind. _How,_ and _help me._

 

“Sarah,” the woman calls, never taking her eyes off her. _Sestra_ , Helena remembers, at the mention of the name, and sits up. Sarah. 

 

The basement is warm and dry, and Helena leans back back against the beam. Better than being outside. The smell of food comes down, accompanied by the clomp of boots on the rickety wooden stairs, and Helena watches Sarah walk over to the older woman, hand her a plate of food and sit down on the box next to her and begin eating. 

 

“What’re you doin’ here?” 

 

Sarah is angry, and the words come out low, harsh, and Helena knows no answer will truly appease her. She does not want to hear anything, really. That, Helena can see. She goes for the truth.

 

“Tomas said I must,” she says, swallowing not out of nervousness but in hunger, the smell of food tantalizing, saliva thick in her mouth. Sarah raises a brow, and spears a piece of something on her plate with her fork, raising it to her mouth and taking a slow bite. “But I do not want to - ”

 

“Bull _shit,_ ” Sarah says instantly, standing and tossing her plate onto the floor. The plate clatters agains the concrete, the fork skittering away, food scattering around her, and if only she could _get to that food -_

 

“I’m supposed to kill you, but you let me live. You feel it,” Helena starts, words thick, because how could Sarah not have felt the connection between them. No matter how she twists the knife now, can’t she feel it?

 

“I said _bull_ \- ”

 

“Sarah,” the older woman says sharply, and shockingly, Sarah shuts her mouth, going quiet. Her body is still taught with tension, and the only movement is Sarah’s fists clenching, tight, as she watches her. 

 

“Chicken. Here,” the older woman says, and Helena looks away from Sarah, sees the older woman standing near her and holding out a bit of toast with something on it. 

 

“Watch your fingers, yeah, mum?” Sarah says, voice thick with sarcasm that Helena would never dare speak with, and the woman snorts. 

 

“You going to take it or not?” the woman asks, and so Helena accepts it. It’s only a bite she has to take from the woman, her hands currently zip-tied professionally behind her back, but it’s something. This woman is a good woman, not like the Sisters and Tomas who pretend at it.

 

“Much thanks,” Helena says, looking up at her, and means it. She adds a smile for good measure.

 

She hasn’t bitten off her mother’s finger and so Sarah seems to relax if only a bit, sitting back down on her box but still looking ready to dart up and lash out at any moment. The older woman sits back down as well, and Helena does not miss the glance between them, the raised brow from the woman and the scowl it gets from Sarah, although what it means is beyond her. 

 

“So, Helena,” the older woman begins, turning back to look at her, and Helena watches her, the way she sits and takes her cup, sips at her tea mulling the question over in her mind before speaking. She is inclined to take the woman’s question seriously as she leans toward her, eyes narrowed, because she is a woman who comports herself in a way that radiates _I-keep-my-promises-at-any-cost_. “What are we going to do with you?”

 

She's never been a good liar, so she goes with the truth. 

 

 

-

 

 

The drive to their destination is quiet, Mrs. S dropping them off somewhere in the city. Sarah kicks open her own door, walks out without a word, and at a nod from Mrs. S, Helena thanks her for giving her the rest of the toast and follows. 

 

The car backs away, turns back onto the street, and Helena wants to ask, _is it difficult, Sarah, to leave Kira with Mrs. S?_ Because it is difficult for her to do, and she has only met Kira once and caused her harm and wants nothing more than to atone for that.

 

Sarah looks at her with softer eyes and her hand flies less quickly to the gun tucked in her belt. There is still a hand that toys with it, though, as Sarah begins walking, calling back over her shoulder. “Well, are you comin’ or not?”

 

She follows Sarah past graffitied walls and into a buliding, up a badly-lit stairwell and down a hallway to a rolling door. Sarah pounds on it, rolls her eyes at the voice that responds back, and crosses her arms over her chest. 

 

The door rolls back with a rumble, and she follows Sarah inside. It’s an open flat that smells faintly of turpentine and cold and something else that makes her nose wrinkle. The man who’s opened the door walks away, goes back to a painting without a word. 

 

“Hey!”

 

It is a voice not unlike her own, and Helena watches as Sarah, dark-frown-kicking-loud-Sarah, actually _smiles_ , walks over to lean down to a woman on the couch and give her a hug, quick and soft, lips brushing against her cheek, before standing again. Moon-and-stars, Helena realizes, the other woman’s eyes bright, and she looks away, ashamed at having watched, intruded. It is not the same way Sarah looks at Kira, or the way she knows she looks at Sarah. There is something there that she does not comprehend but knows still to be awed by. 

 

“Cosima, this is Helena,” she hears Sarah say, and Sarah is back at her side, nudging her with a pointy elbow. “Your manners disappear all the sudden?” she whispers gruffly, and Helena steps forward, is prepared to say hello when the other woman, Cosima, envelopes her in a hug.

 

“Welcome to the club,” Cosima says wryly, and Helena lays a hand tentatively on her shoulder as Cosima lingers. She has many questions for her, although the most important is how does she get her hairs to behave so?

 

“You got any leftovers?” Sarah asks, interrupting the quiet _much thanks_ that slips from her lips, and Cosima pulls away, winks at her before heading for the kitchen. “It’s been a long night.”

 

“We sure do.”

 

The sestras have an abundance of food that is astounding. Cosima opens the cupboards, speaks to Sarah about something, and Helena watches as she pulls dishes off of shelves, tosses something into a pan on the stove, and uncorks a bottle of wine and uncaps a bottle of whiskey and pours them each a drink. 

 

Cosima sits down at the table with them, slips everyone a plate of something that she calls _mac-and-cheese_. It is bright orange and delicious.

 

Helena swallows her first bite, and there has been that and the toast from earlier - this night? Morning? And what before that? - and she scoops up another spoonful, brings it to her mouth followed instantly by another. 

 

Sister Agnes’ lessons come back to her as they often do in moments of helpfulness. _Say please and thank you. Don’t chew with your mouth open. Excuse yourself._

 

The chiding voice talks to empty air. Food is more important than water, breathing, thought. Helena swallows, crams another spoonful into her mouth, because what if someone takes it away and it’s _gone_ the next second, and coughs loudly around crumbs that tickle her throat. 

 

“Oi!” Sarah exclaims, sitting forward and slapping the table. “Chew, meat'ead! I ain't givin' you mouth-to-mouth.”

 

“The Heimlich is for choking,” Cosima offers, and Sarah rolls her eyes.

 

“Whatever.”

 

She shovels through the mac-and-cheese on her plate, more and more quickly as she reaches the end, and once it is all gone resists picking up the ceramic, licking the rest of the cheese sauce off as Sarah and Cosima speak, picking at their food. Helena sets her spoon down. Sarah has been a good sestra. She cannot ask for more food, although she’d like to.

 

“How’s Alison doing?”

 

“The usual. Paranoid. But we need that right now, don't we?”

 

Helena sits watching, and frowns suddenly as her stomach cramps painfully. Chew thirty times before swallowing, Aneta had told her once, not for manners but to make the food last longer. She’s forgotten in her hunger.

 

It all comes back up in a rush, and Cosima jerks back in surprise. 

 

“Oh my god, Helena,” Sarah groans, but within seconds amusement seeps into her expression, and she’s laughing as the man runs over, waving a paintbrush in agitation. “That’s disgusting.”

 

“For fuck’s sake, Sarah, this was _not_ discussed when you asked if you could hide all your sisters in my loft!”

 

Most of it ended up on her plate, and Sarah complains as Helena helps her clean up but doesn’t seem particularly angry. Cosima gets up, too, shoos Sarah away from her, and heads back to the kitchen. She opens a can, pours soup into a pan, and warms it up on the stove before pouring it into a bowl and finally lets Sarah help her. 

 

Sarah motions for her to sit at the table, and Helena does as she’s asked, takes the bowl Sarah offers her and tries to eat the little star-shaped noodles and chunks of chicken a little more slowly. 

 

“Apologies, sestras,” she begins around a spoonful, but Cosima waves a hand in the air.

 

“Happens to everyone.”

 

The soup she keeps down, although not long after it makes her very sleepy. Sarah, a good sestra, sees this, and offers her the couch which is soft and dry and has pillows and a blanket and is much nicer than anything she’s slept on in months, and nearly makes her cry. 

 

Helena lays her head down, pulls the blanket up to her chin, and falls asleep to the murmurs of Sarah and Cosima talking. 

 

 

-

 

 

Sestra Alison’s home is decorated for Christmas, and Sarah elbows her. Softer now, a joke between them. “Never seen a Christmas tree lit up or what, meat’ead?” she asks, and Helena smiles, follows Sarah out of the mudroom and into the house.

 

The dinner is delicious as usual. She finishes her plate and stays her hand from reaching for more, but there must be some connection between them all, to varying degrees, because Cosima sitting between her and Sarah passes her a bowl of mashed potatos, leans close and smiles. “Hey. You're eating for two now.”

 

And since it has been offered, Helena takes the bowl, heaps more food onto her plate until Oscar’s eyes go wide and she decides perhaps that it will be enough, for now. 

 

“Yes, much eating,” she agrees.

 

She met Jessie Tow, eating. There was much eating and drinking, and then fucking, and he is away now, somewhere, but Helena lays a hand on her stomach, feels the tiny, trembling flutter of kicking feet. Jessie is not moon-and-stars, but he _is_ hand-holding and quiet-voice, and that is a very good story for her baby, she decides, and could not ask for more.

 

With the food gone the alcohol comes out, and she knows better than to drink - and Mrs. S watches her sternly. When Gemma and Kira grow bored and get up and come to tug on her sleeve and ask her to help them bake cookies, Helena agrees, leaves the table and Sarah and Cosima, her sister, looking narrow-eyed-slouching-relaxed for once, doing a poor job at hiding the fact that she is clasping Cosima's hand in her lap, hidden under sestra Alison's draping tablecloth.

 

She follows Gemma’s directions, lets the girls read from the cookbook they prop up against the backsplash and helps them crack eggs without spilling pieces of shell into the mixture. They form little men, pop the tray into the oven, and when the timer dings and they pull them out, the house smells of warmth and cloves. 

 

The gingerbread men have flattened considerably - _too much butter and not enough flour_ , sestra Alison says in passing, as she comes back into the kitchen for the dessert cake, but _that’s what makes it taste good_ , Gemma giggles, and Helena agrees.

 

“Auntie Helena,” Kira asks, picking up a cookie and holding it up to her. Gemma grabs two as well, runs off to give one to her brother. “Did you make gingerbread back in Ukraine?”

 

“No.” They made nothing, but that is not a story for a child. But on occasion, rare enough so that she's not sure whether it had been real or a dream, except for the tang of inedible grass on her tongue as a reminder, there was babka. Helena pulls up a barstool, sits back gratefully, and takes the cookie Kira offers her, bites off a leg first and watches Kira pick up another one and take her own bite. “We made babka,” she says.

 

Kira’s face scrunches at the word, distrustful. “What’s that?”

 

“Cake. Delicious,” Helena assures her. “Also sometimes bread, also good. I make both one day.”

 

Kira takes a thoughtful bite of her gingerbread man, and asks, “So it’s really good?”

 

Helena nods seriously. Although Canada is home to much good food, nothing beats babka, except perhaps cronuts, which Cosima has introduced her to. “The best.”

 

Kira looks around, but it is only the two of them in the kitchen now, the others in the living room still drinking and talking a little louder now, Gemma and Oscar hidden away together like only siblings are wont to do. “Can I have two?” Kira asks tentatively, and Helena laughs.

 

“Yes.”

 

And Kira looks are her slyly, grinning, and asks, “Three?”

 

Helena reaches out, grabs Kira to pull her as close as she can with her stomach in the way, and digs her fingers into Kira's side, listens to her shriek with laughter.

 

“ _Moya pleminnytsya_ ,” she says because no other word is right, and knows she will make Kira anything she asks for. This, she can do, surrounded now by her sestras and warmth and happiness, where little girls worry only about yellow-belt tests and school projects, and not food and the lack of it. She lets Kira lean against her lightly, pretends to nibble on her cheek as Kira giggles, and promises, “You may have as many babka as you like.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
